Gabriel Iglesias

Comments (0) By P.F. Wilson Wednesday, Apr 14 2010

More About

Even before he auditioned for Last Comic Standing in 2006, Gabriel Iglesias was headlining comedy clubs across the country. The lure of eight million TV viewers was tough to pass up, though. It's been quite a ride for a kid from suburban San Diego, California. "I knew I was going to do this. I knew it was one of those 'matter of time' things. If not, I'd probably be living with my mom. I'm not even going to front," he laughs. And it did take time. While going through a rough patch in his adolescence, it was the encouragement of friends that made him try standup. It helped. Today, Iglesias feels very at ease talking about his life onstage, but that also took time. "It took a while to get comfortable. I want to say it was about five years before I actually started talking about myself. I was up there doing cartoon characters and impressions and stuff like that." He still does some of that, but he's also just as likely to talk about his son. "He's such a character. He's 14. I became a father overnight. He's mine but he's not mine, you know what I mean? But he looks just like me, so he might as well be." As for the future, Iglesias says he's not looking at standup as a steppingstone to a television series or movie career. "I got into standup to do standup," he states, "which is what I'm doing now, so I'm loving it. If movies happen it's because they want me for the part, same thing with TV. I'm not really working towards that, but if it happens, they force it on me, I guess I have to do it."
Sun., April 18, 7 p.m., 2010